Education Policy Moving Forward: Power and Progress at the State Level

Darling-Hammond, Linda

Voices in Urban Education, n45 2017

The author believe it is clear that Trump has only really one stated goal--to expand choice through charters and vouchers, with a frame around privatization--and that we can look to his own experiences with Trump University's for-profit approach to providing education for some clues. We can anticipate that the framing for the proposals will include for-profit institutions in K-12, as well as in higher education that are less regulated than they are now. It will be very important for people to sort out what the features and conditions are for a productive public education system that provides what's needed in a democracy, and the ways in which strategies like charter schools may fit in that context and add value, and the conditions under which choice strategies disrupt and are destructive to public education and actually undermine access to a quality public education for all kids. The other thing she thinks we should be ready for is the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). A bipartisan bill that replaced No Child Left Behind, it corrected some of its major failings, and put a lot of opportunity in the hands of the states to figure out how to organize for public education improvement. The author highlights state-level progress in Georgia and Massachusetts and says that a lot can be done at the state level, irrespective of what's happening federally. She believes the election has triggered a movement and that the good news is so many people are standing up and saying, we are Americans who stand for an inclusive America and we're going to fight for it.